Simon Martin

What is the role of natural selection in shaping the diversity of nature? When sexual species hybridise and share genetic matarial, why don’t they eventually collapse into a single species? What are the consequences of the exchange of genetic material between species, and how often is this process beneficial? These are some of the questions I think about and work on.

My overall goal is to better our understanding of speciation and adpatation by testing hypotheses about the mechanics of these processes. I use genome sequencing of natural populations combined with both descriptive and model-based computational approaches, most of which are rooted in population-genetic theory. I am interested in developing creative ways of working with genomic data, so that we can get the most out of this tremendous resource.